The Beishan orogenic collage is located in the southernmost part of the Altaids, and connects the Southern Tien Shan suture to the west with the Solonker suture to the east. The orogen was previously regarded as early Paleozoic in age in contrast to the surrounding southern Altaid collages, which are Late Paleozoic or even Early Mesozoic. This paper reviews the tectonic units of the Beishan orogen, which along a north-south traverse consists of several arcs and ophiolitic me ´langes. These tectonic units were thrust imbricated and overprinted by strike-slip faulting during Permian-Triassic times, and the youngest strata involved in the deformation are Permian. Stitching plutons are Late Permian in age. Peaks of magmatic-metamorphictectonic activity, and paleomagnetic and paleogeographic data indicate that the Beishan orogenic collage evolved by development of several, Early to Mid-Paleozoic arcs in different parts of the Paleoasian Ocean. The Late Paleozoic collage is characterized by three active continental margins or island arcs that are separated by two ophiolitic me ´langes. The northernmost active margin is represented by the Queershan arc, which may have lasted until the Permian. The Shibanshan unit is the southernmost, subductionrelated continental arc along the northern margin of the Dunhuang block. In the Late Carboniferous to Permian the eastern end (promontory) of the Tarim Craton probably collided with the Chinese eastern Tien Shan arc, forming a new active continental margin, which interacted with the Beishan Late Paleozoic archipelago, generating a complicated subduction-accretionary orogen; this is suggested to be one of the last phases in the development of the long-lived Altaid accretionary orogenesis. The new model for this orogen bridges the gap between the western and eastern ends of the southern Altaids. The modern Timor-Australia collision zone with its many surrounding arcs is an appropriate analog for the Altaids in the Late Paleozoic.

The tectonic history and time of closure of the Palaeo-Asian ocean of the Altaids are issues of lively current debate. To address these issues, this paper presents detailed geological, petrological and geochemical data of the Liuyuan complex (LC) in the Beishan region in NW China, located in the southernmost Altaids, in order to constrain its age, origin and tectonic setting. The LC mainly comprises massive basalts, pillow basalts, basaltic breccias, gabbros and ultramafic rocks together with cherts and tuffs. Most prominent are gabbros and large volumes of basaltic lavas. These mafic rocks have high TiO2 contents, flat rare earth element (REE) patterns and show high-field-strength elements (HFSEs) similar to those of mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB). The mafic rocks exhibit positive εNd(t) (6.6–9.0) values, representing magmas derived from the mantle. But these basic rocks are also enriched in Th relative to REEs, and are systematically depleted in Nb–Ta–(Ti) relative to REEs. There is also a large range in initial 87Sr/86Sr (0.7037–0.7093). All these variables indicate that mantle-derived magma was contaminated by fluids and/or melts from a subducting lithospheric slab, and formed in a supra-subduction zone (SSZ) setting. A gabbro intruded in the complex was dated by LA-ICP-MS on 20 zircons that yielded a 206Pb–238U weighted average age of 286 ± 2 Ma. Considering the fact that all these basalts are imbricated against Permian tuffaceous sediments and limestone, we propose that the LC formed as an ophiolite in a fore-arc in Carboniferous–Permian time. This indicates that the Palaeo-Asian ocean still existed at 286 ± 2 Ma in early Permian time, and thus the time of closure of the Palaeo-Asian ocean was in or after the late Permian.

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